Ohio Politics Now: Ahead of debate, John Kasich takes on Donald Trump

Michelle Everhart, The Columbus Dispatch

Monday

Oct 26, 2015 at 12:01 AMOct 26, 2015 at 1:14 PM

This week will mark the third GOP presidential debate, this time in Boulder, Colorado. With so many candidates still in the mix - including Ohio Gov. John Kasich - Dispatch Public Affairs Editor Darrel Rowland tries to sort out the puzzle of a field. "No one knows, or could know, at this point where Kasich - or most of the others - will end up," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "Actually, you can argue the odds are against every single candidate, even (business tycoon Donald) Trump. No one is a substantial favorite this early, and the picture is very confused."

Want to know what’s happening in Ohio government and politics from Columbus to Washington, D.C.? We’ve got you covered.

This week will mark the third GOP presidential debate, this time in Boulder, Colorado. With so many candidates still in the mix - including Ohio Gov. John Kasich - Dispatch Public Affairs Editor Darrel Rowland tries to sort out the puzzle of a field.

“No one knows, or could know, at this point where Kasich — or most of the others — will end up,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “Actually, you can argue the odds are against every single candidate, even (business tycoon Donald) Trump. No one is a substantial favorite this early, and the picture is very confused.”

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What Kasich says: “I have confidence that at the end, things will settle down, and … people will decide they want somebody who understands them, who knows that change has to come, but somebody that can get it done.”

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Kasich vs. Trump: GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump took credit on Twitter for moving Ford jobs from Mexico back to Ohio, saying “Word is that Ford Motor, because of my constant badgering at packed events, is going to cancel their deal to go to Mexico and stay in U.S."

But the Kasich team fired some shots at Trump, pointing out that, no, that’s not the case. The deal to bring the jobs back to Ohio was actually announced four years ago.

“Our country needs real leadership and not empty, false rhetoric. Working as a TEAM, we brought Ford production jobs back from Mexico to Ohio years ago. That’s how things really get done. Hard work and teamwork brings results for the people,” Kasich said in a blog post on his site. “Our nation needs a leader with a record of actually delivering for all of us, that’s why I’m running for President.”

Here’s a Toledo Blade story from four years ago, announcing the move from Mexico to Lorain County.

But Rowland reports there is more to all of this. "As the CNN Money article pointed out, Ford has been taking heat for about six months after announcing plans to invest $2.5 billion in transmission plants in Chihuahua and Guanajuato, creating about 3,800 jobs in Mexico," Rowland writes. "For several months, Kasich has been pressuring an automaker behind the scenes that has announced plans to move production to Mexico. But the campaign won't say which one."

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What Trump said: When ABC News asked Trump about Kasich, the billionaire (who usually attacks his opponents) said, ""He’s a nice man, John Kasich. I like him.”

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A word from the campaign: POLITICO's Mike Allen refers to a campaign memo sent by Kasich campaign strategist John Weaver, which includes, "The coming debates play to our strengths and will allow us to lay the foundation nationally that is already taking hold in New Hampshire...There will likely not be any lasting breakout moment in this campaign; the path to victory is staying disciplined and on our message.We will continue to build incrementally to peak when the delegates begin being awarded. New Hampshire is notorious for narrowing the field. We are positioned to come out of New Hampshire as the candidate that our Party can coalesce around."

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Happening today: Kasich will be in Columbus to unveil a new plan to help battle the opiate crisis in Ohio.

See where else the governor has been in the past months with our interactive map that includes stories, videos and photos.

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Happening on Tuesday: The Kasich team will have a debate send-off rally at the Everal Barn in Westerville Tuesday afternoon one day before the next GOP debate. Get more information here.

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More on the Kasich plan: Dispatch Washington bureau chief Jack Torry takes a closer look at Kasich’s budget/policy plan that he unveiled earlier this month while on the presidential campaign trail.

“Republican presidential candidate John Kasich rejected a sweeping overhaul of the tax code with his new economic plan and instead offered a more traditional Republican blueprint he claims will spark the U.S. economy and eventually balance the federal budget,” Torry writes. “Although critics charge that Kasich’s plan, unveiled this month in New Hampshire, is based on overly optimistic projections of economic growth and illusory budget restraints, the Ohio governor steered clear of more radical conservative ideas to scrap the tax code and substitute either a single rate income tax or a tax solely on consumption.”

"God gives us our personalities and our looks and we can't help that," said Robert Rowe, a New Hampshire state representative who is switching his allegiance from Bush to Ohio Gov. John Kasich. "We are who we are."

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Issues 2 and 3: Got questions about State Issue 2 (anti-monopoly) and Issue 3 (marijuana legalization)? Dispatch reporter Alan Johnson has answers. Find out how the two could affect each other, how much pot you could grow at home and how much it will cost you to buy it at the store.

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Swapping seats: “The primary election season will not be a quiet one around the Statehouse, with a number of lawmakers looking to jump seats, many to avoid being pushed out of office by term limits,” Dispatch reporter Jim Siegel writes. “Some lawmakers have extended their legislative careers well beyond the voter-approved eight-year term limits by switching chambers. This election season features seven open Senate seats due to term limits, and a number could generate primary battles.”

See who is going to battle it out and who will swap seats.

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Lake Erie problems: “Presidential candidate John Kasich’s resistance to tougher regulation for big agriculture quietly emerged as a dominant theme of the first-ever Rotary Lake Erie Watershed Crisis Conference, creating strong political overtones for a two-day event that organizers were trying to keep as nonpartisan as possible,” writes Toledo Blade reporter Tom Henry. “Mr. Kasich has not heeded calls to seek federal impairment status for western Lake Erie with help from Michigan and Indiana. A similar designation is credited with reducing algae-forming nutrients flowing from six states and the District of Columbia into the Chesapeake Bay.”

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ICYMI: Former President Bill Clinton will make a stop in Dayton as well as Columbus next month. Clinton will take part in the 20th-anniversary commemoration of the Dayton Peace Accords, the Associated Press reports.

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On this day: According to The Dispatch library, on this day in 2006, “A federal judge halts state voter identification requirements. The ruling prevents thousands of absentee ballots from being thrown out after they were returned with the wrong number from voters' driver's licenses listed on them. Three days later, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issues an order staying the ruling made by a federal judge. The court's ruling requires county board of elections to once again start requiring ID of voters.”

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Voters Guide: More than 61,000 ballots have been cast statewide already in the Nov. 3 election. You can see what will be on your ballot with The Dispatch's Voters Guide.

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Get the news in your inbox: Did you hear we have a Dispatch Politics email? Get political news delivered to your inbox each morning and as news breaks. Sign up here.

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meverhart@dispatch.com

@meverhart26

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